A new feature to the onomastic database of Trismegistos People: Network

Networks are ways to map connections between elements, in this case
names. Each name is represented by a node (the dots), and each
connection is shown as an edge (or link or tie: the lines between the
dots).
The nature of the connection can be chosen freely. In this network there
is a link between name A and name B if a person with name A chose name B
for his or her son or daughter. If more people with name A have opted
for name B, the link will be tighter (and the line visualising it
thicker). The networks of the more popular names resemble 'spaghetti
monsters', as they are connected with many other names. To see where the
name itself is, hover over the transcription in the information pane to
the right of the window.
There are many network measures to describe the features of the network
as a whole, as well as those of individual nodes and ties: betweenness
centrality, Eigenvector, density, modularity, ... Here we have limited
the information to degree centrality, which is how many other names a
name is connected to. Since the network is directed (meaning that there
is a direction from parent to child), we distinguish between out-degree
(how many different names are chosen by parents with that name) and
in-degree (how many different names are attested for the parents of
children with that name).
E.g. When the name Thotortaios
has a degree of 184, this means he occurs in 184 different parent -
child pairs. The out-degree of 85 means that Thotortaios is the father's
name of children with 85 different names. The name's in-degree of 99
implies that 99 different fathers' or mothers' names are attested.

In principle the shape of the network is irrelevant: as long as nodes
are connected, they can be placed anywhere. But as humans have
difficulty seeing the 69,860 edges between the 17,182 nodes (names in
this case), programs like Gephi
can adapt the visual representation of the network according to specific
layout algoritms. In this case we have used 'ForceAtlas 2". The 47-second video below shows this process, which in fact took the MacBook
Air over 22 minutes.

The primary focus of the project is notice and comment on open access material relating to the ancient world, but I will also include other kinds of networked information as it comes available.

The ancient world is conceived here as it is at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, my academic home at the time AWOL was launched. That is, from the Pillars of Hercules to the Pacific, from the beginnings of human habitation to the late antique / early Islamic period.

AWOL is the successor to Abzu, a guide to networked open access data relevant to the study and public presentation of the Ancient Near East and the Ancient Mediterranean world, founded at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago in 1994. Together they represent the longest sustained effort to map the development of open digital scholarship in any discipline.